Global COVID-19 Death Toll Has Surpassed 4 Million

ANDY SLAVITT, FORMER SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISER FOR COVID RESPONSE: Well, over the last decade, the ACA has become kind of really integral part of the fabric of the health care system here in the U.S. And, at the same time, there’s always been the sword that’s hung over its head, as President Trump used every means possible, including the courts, including the legislature, including executive authority, to try to undermine it. And I think yesterday saw the end of that. A 7-2 ruling which says you don’t even have standing is as close to get this case out of my court as you’re going to hear from the Supreme Court. You do have to ask why people who don’t have standing — in other words, they’re not even being harmed by the law — would want to work so hard to take health care away from so many people. But that’s probably a broader topic for us.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: So let me ask you one more question on this subject, because what does it mean going forward? I mean, you talk in your book about the need for better public health policy. Does now the opportunity to expand health care for millions of Americans address some of those concerns that you raised in the book?

SLAVITT: Well, one of the things that the book shows is that, the way our health care system worked, is, as people lost their jobs here in the U.S., as they were by the millions, they were also losing their health — access to health care. And so we had a situation — and there was someone followed in the book who works at an Amazon warehouse who had this sort of triple threat of lost his job, got COVID, couldn’t get paid, and couldn’t get a COVID test, because we didn’t have enough. So the situation for many Americans was sort of a system that was the opposite of resilient. It didn’t help us in times of pain. It piled on top of us in times of difficulty.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, a nightmare scenario that you just painted right there. Speaking of a potential nightmare scenario, let’s talk about this Delta variant first detected in India. The CDC director saying today that she does anticipate that it’s going to become the dominant variant here in the United States, the World Health Organization saying the same globally. You have called this COVID on steroids. How concerned are you about this particular variant?

SLAVITT: So, I’m quite concerned for the globe. The unvaccinated parts of the world, which, as you know, Bianna, we are many, have a more transmissible bug to deal with. And so it steps up the urgency to vaccinate the globe. Same is true with the parts of the U.S. and the people in the U.S. that aren’t yet vaccinated. Their chances of walking into a room and getting COVID are probably about double than the original COVID of 2020. So, if it took you 10 minutes of exposure before, it may take you five minutes now. So, that’s the kind of thing that’s invisible to us and we should be wary of. And it’s another reason why, if you’re not vaccinated, you should strongly consider talking to your doctor and getting vaccinated and protecting yourself, because, if you are vaccinated, here’s the good news, then this variant is very, very harmless.